


Family Forged

by Triscribe



Series: What-If Star Wars AUs [7]
Category: Star Wars: Kanan (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother Feels, Depa Billaba Lives, Family, Friendship, Order 66, Post-Order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25400656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triscribe/pseuds/Triscribe
Summary: “You’ve been given the hints about Sixty-six, then? Tell me what you know.”“Only that it’s apparently some kind of command hardwired into our brains, sir.”“Hardwired into a biochip that’s in our brains, you mean.” Grey paused. “Or at least, is in most of our brains.”
Series: What-If Star Wars AUs [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788598
Comments: 8
Kudos: 218





	Family Forged

**Author's Note:**

> Thought I'd share something a bit happier for those of you who cried over Staggering Regrets ;)

After a good night, spent catching up with General Billaba and getting to know her new Padawan learner, both Grey and Styles were ready to get back to some serious business. Not the War, although that was the second most serious thing in their lives at the moment - no, the pair had more personal mission on their agenda, to complete before the Jedi got up in the morning.

“Suggestions for a starting place, Big Mouth?” Styles muttered as he pulled on his armor.

“Yeah, I’d go with the newest shiny - one one five seven. Speaks just as highly of General Ti as the other boys, but he gets a look in his eye when he does, something that tells me he’ll be more receptive to our message.” The corporal checked his blaster, continuing to speak under his breath. “After that, I’d move onto the pair, two three six four and two three six five - they transferred in from a group that had some training with a member of the Wolfpack...”

After getting all of Big Mouth’s recommendations, Styles brought the info back to Grey, who nodded as he took it all in. Then the Commander called for CT-1157, and ordered him to go inform General Billaba that they were ready to roll out.

The list was only a starting place, clones who would be watched closely to decide whether they could be brought in on the secret or not. Grey had Big Mouth keep 1157 on a short leash, both to make sure the kid stayed out of trouble and to see how he interacted with the Jedi.

Sharing a laugh with the small Padawan, Caleb Dume, was a point in 1157’s favor.

Defending his unconscious body in the following battle, against orders, was promising enough for Grey to make his decision.

“Thought I might find you here,” the Commander smiled as he entered the medical bay. 1157, or Stance as he’d been named, looked up a bit sheepishly. The young trooper was sitting beside Dume’s bacta tank, cleaning his weapon while keeping an eye on his friend. “Doc droids know when he’ll be coming out?”

“Should be sometime tomorrow morning. Did you need something, sir?” Stance asked, scrambling to his feet.

“Yes, but you can stay at ease, kid.” Taking his own advice, Grey found a comfortable spot on the nearby console to lean against, studying Dume for a moment. The boy’s short brown hair waved in the gentle currents of the tank, occasionally dropping low to obscure his closed eyes. Bandages covered his blaster wounds, though the irritated red skin was still visible around them.

“Who was your main combat trainer at Kamino?” Grey asked without preamble.

Stance blinked in response. “Jeshru G’nilk, hired bounty hunter.”

“Good, he’s one of the ones on our side.” He held up a hand to stall the incoming questions. “You’ve been given the hints about Sixty-six, then? Tell me what you know.”

“Only that it’s apparently some kind of command hardwired into our brains, sir.”

“Hardwired into a biochip that’s in our brains, you mean.” Grey paused. “Or at least, is in _most_ of our brains.”

“Most, sir?”

“Some of us have had those biochips removed, so that when the Order is given out, we don’t have to obey it like droids.”

Stance looked more than a little alarmed at that.

“Wh- sir, what _is_ Order Sixty-six?”

“A command to execute any and all Jedi with extreme prejudice, no matter age or skill level, under the assumption that they have turned against the Republic.” Grey couldn’t help the slight, grim smile at Stance’s gobsmacked expression. “An assumption that quite a few of us think would be outright false if ever made.”

“But, why...?”

“Why would the Jedi turn against us? Simple, we don’t think they would. Why would such a command be forced upon our minds? Whoever placed it knew we would question or outright disobey if such an order was delivered normally. Why am I telling you all this?” He gestured to the bacta tank, where young Caleb Dume was floating harmlessly, recovering from wounds sustained while fighting alongside his Master’s troops. “I think you can figure out that last one for yourself, kid.”

Stance turned slightly to stare at his small friend, barely a teenager and new to the realm of warfare, before looking back at Grey with a determined glint in his eye. “How do I get this chip out?”

-FF-

Stance had never been more grateful to his battalion’s Jedi than when Caleb saved his life on Mygeeto - because if the small boy hadn’t Force-pushed him out of the way of that Kage Warrior’s attack, the clone knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d be dead. For that, the kid had nearly died himself, managing only at the last second to cut the fuel line to his opponent’s flamethrower. Stance then finished him off with a shot to the head, and the pair took a moment to breathe deeply before joining up with the others again.

But, just as their previous battle on Kardoa left one Jedi recovering in a bacta tank, this latest fight did too. Big Mouth took it upon himself to make sure Caleb got enough to eat and sleep while General Billaba healed from her duel with Grievous, since otherwise, all the troopers were fairly certain the kid would sit beside her tank and not move an inch.

While the Corporal handled that, Stance went with Commander Grey to talk to a couple of his squad mates, CT-2364 and CT-2365, or Charge and Chill as they’d been recently named.

It took a bit of convincing to get them to believe about Order Sixty-Six, but once assured of its inherent danger, the pair were just as eager as Stance had been to get his biochip out. Grey led the three of them to one of the ship’s hangar bays, where a small freighter had docked to (supposedly) deliver supplies. Aboard it was also a specialized med bay, where each of the three younger clones took turns being anesthetized and operated on.

Feeling remarkably more at ease afterward, Stance and the other two bid their Commander a good night before heading back to their barracks. And along the way, Charge was the one to bring up a question Stance knew wouldn’t be long in appearing.

“So... how’d the Commander find out about Order Sixty-Six, anyway?”

“I asked him that same thing, actually. Remember that story from a couple months ago about a five oh first trooper who went off the deep end and attacked the Chancellor?”

“Yeah.”

“He never went crazy at all - he was investigating the biochips, trying to figure out what they were for and who’d ordered them planted in our heads.” Both the other troopers looked surprised, then thoughtful.

“So,” Chill murmured. “Whoever was behind it managed to get to him first, and then came up with a cover story so others wouldn’t know the truth?”

“Exactly. Except, he told the five oh first Captain, who passed it along to others he thought were trustworthy, and so on and so forth until, well, here we are.”

“Has anyone told the Jedi?”

At that, Stance paused. “...I dunno. Probably, but then it’s most likely to only be the Masters and Knights who know.” With Caleb’s honest face and utter sincerity, he had a hard time believing that the kid knew about Sixty-Six and the threat constantly posed towards him and the General.

“Why isn’t everyone told? Not just all us brothers, but the public too?” Charge asked.

“Can you picture how that would go? People would question if it wasn’t a _good_ thing to have a failsafe against the Jedi, whether or not one was needed. Trust in them would disappear. Besides, if the Kaminiise and whoever came up with Sixty-Six in the first place knew we were removing the chips, they’d find a way to get us all back under their control. Then there’d be _nobody_ around to protect the Jedi if the order goes out.”

They all fell silent after that, disturbed by unpleasant visions of men with their face and armor shooting at their calm and confident General, their small but fiercely energetic Commander. It didn’t bear thinking about.

If secrecy was what it took to keep them from Death’s embrace, then in secrecy the clones would continue to operate.

-FF-

_*Execute Order Sixty-Six.*_

As the scratchy voice came over his comm line, Stance froze. Around him, his brothers did the same, as they all took a moment to interpret the instruction from Chancellor Palpatine himself.

Then, the camp was divided in two.

A majority of the troopers grabbed up their blasters and readied themselves to begin firing at the pair of Jedi seated by one of the fires. Others among them set their weapons for stun, and immediately began taking out their closest brothers.

General Billaba, it would seem, _had_ been made aware of Order Sixty-Six, as all Grey had to do was shout the number before the woman grabbed her bewildered padawan and fled. Stance was glad to see them go, painfully aware that with the numbers stacked as they were, he and the other free-thinking troopers wouldn’t be able to hold the line for long.

Beside him, Charge took a hit in the stomach and dropped to one knee with a grunt. Chill came dashing up, catching his batch-brother and helping him back to where Grey and the rest on their side were preparing to get themselves out of the camp as well. Stance kept his retreat even-paced, giving the others as much time as possible, before a grenade thrown by one of his brainwashed brothers forced the clone to run.

The following explosion threw him off his feet, but even as Stance was getting back up Soot pulled alongside him on a speeder, catching the younger clone by an arm and hauling him onto the rear seat. Then they were off, in a group of perhaps twenty troopers, heading around to the far side of the ridge General Billaba and Caleb had vanished over.

Even with Force-enhanced speed, the pair of Jedi hadn’t managed to run very far yet, and it was only a few minutes before the group caught up to them. Without a word, the General practically threw Caleb onto the same speeder as Stance and Soot , before she herself joined single-rider Styles. Both maneuvers had been done without the vehicles slowing down, allowing them to maintain speed away from the pursuing troopers.

“Stance, what’s going on? What’s happening?” Glancing down at the kid awkwardly seated between himself and Soot, the young clone winced when he saw how terrified his friend was.

“Long story, Caleb, but I promise we’ll explain once we’ve gotten somewhere defensible.” He didn’t bother to say _somewhere safe,_ because for Jedi-harboring clones, there might not be any place like that - certainly not on Kaller, maybe not in any inhabited system at all - and defensible was the best he could offer.

Keeping Caleb pressed close between his chest and Soot’s back, Stance did his best to try and offer the kid some semblance of comfort as they fled, as the little Jedi periodically cried out, tears flowing from eyes that were distantly observing whatever other murders were going on throughout the galaxy.

-FF-

Janus Kasmir was headed back to his ship after an evening out when it started pouring down rain. Grumbling to himself, the Kalleran ducked into a somewhat sheltered alleyway as a shortcut, hoping to make it to the _Kasmiri_ before his clothes became completely soaked.

So really, stumbling across the fugitive Jedi and their clone bodyguards was a complete accident. Not that saying so stopped three of said bodyguards from holding their blasters to his head.

“Whoa whoa whoa, come on now!” Janus complained as he was surrounded by dripping wet troopers. “I’m not gonna go squealing on you, honest!”

“Do you even know how to be honest, tuft-sucker?” The captain of the group snarled.

“Now there’s no reason to throw around insults like that-”

“Styles.” The older of the two Jedi stepped forward, placing her hand on the clone’s weapon. “At ease. What is your name, Kalleran?”

“Kasmir, Janus Kasmir. And you’re General What’s-her-name.”

Styles raised his blaster again with an irritated jerk. “We can’t risk word getting back to the brainwashed men, General.”

“I don’t think it will. Tell me, Janus Kasmir, do you know of any smugglers with a large enough ship to get us all off of Kaller?”

Glancing around the group of twenty or so clones, plus their pair of Jedi, he slowly nodded. “I am, in fact, a smuggler myself, and my ship’s got just enough of a carrying capacity for the lot of you. Where exactly are you aiming to go?”

“That doesn’t matter for the moment,” the Jedi said. “Are you willing to get us out?”

“...Sure.” With that, the majority of blasters were lowered, and Janus started hashing out a rough schedule for sneaking all the clones to the docking bay of his ship. Trying to pass them all off as regular troopers on patrol was just asking for trouble, so he also offered to take some of their armor and sell it in order to purchase some less conspicuous clothing. After conferring amongst themselves, about half the clones agreed, and started to remove the white and red plating. While that was going on, Janus was finally able to get more than a brief glance of the baby Jedi, who’d been kept hidden behind a couple of the troopers.

The kid didn’t look so good, drenched by the rain even with his Master’s robe wrapped around on top of his own. Janus could practically feel his heartstrings being tugged at, as he recognized the protectiveness a few of the clones were harboring towards the bedraggled boy, keeping themselves between him and the potential threat even as the deal was discussed for getting them all off Kaller.

Sighing internally when he was asked for a price, Janus decided to cut the fugitives some slack.

“Once we’ve gotten wherever it is you all are going, I’ll take the rest of the armor for my payment.”

The grown Jedi blinked at him. “That’s it?”

“Not like you people have much else to give, to be honest.”

“True, but-”

“Lady, you gonna argue with me, or just accept a good turn?” Clearly wary as to his reasons why, she nonetheless agreed. “Good. Now, I’m willing to sneak you and the baby Jedi to my ship first, since both of you seem to have gotten wetter than anyone else out here.”

“No.” The commander of the group, who hadn’t spoken yet, stepped forward. “We aren’t letting them go anywhere without us.”

Janus rolled his eyes. “While you’re still undisguised and liable to attract attention.”

Narrowing her eyes, the grown Jedi suddenly turned and strode to her Padawan. Helping him out of her larger robe, she then turned and hung it across the shoulders of a startled clone wearing only his jumpsuit. “General?”

“Go with Caleb, Stance,” she ordered. “Get to Kasmir’s ship, and guard it while he’s out selling the armor we’ve given him. The rest of us will join you according to the plan.”

“Master, I’m not luh-leav- lea-ah-ah-AHH-CHOO!” The force of his sneeze nearly bowled the little Jedi over. Janus was hard pressed not to chuckle, and from the quirking of lips around him, so were several of the clones.

“You’re liable to get sick if you stay out here any longer, Padawan-mine,” his Master murmured, resting a hand on the kid’s soaked hair. “Go. Stance will look out for you.”

“Doesn’t look like we’ve got a choice, Caleb. Come on,” the clone, Stance, said. Obviously reluctant, the kid nonetheless took his offered hand, and then the pair looked expectantly at Janus.

“Right this way, boys.”


End file.
